


On The Brink

by broadwayiscooliguess



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Canon Compliant, Everyone's really sad, Its not graphic it just sort of happens, Jason-Centric, Multi, Post canon, Suicide, What happened after Falsettoland, attempted suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 22:50:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11262651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadwayiscooliguess/pseuds/broadwayiscooliguess
Summary: Jason sees them all break down.





	On The Brink

**Author's Note:**

> Triggers - suicide, major character death, attempted suicide please be careful 
> 
> Another fic wow and I almost cried whilst writing this one. It wasn't the one I keep talking about on Instagram which should be coming soon and is a BOM one so look forward to that and enjoy this mess.

Jason sees them all break down.

Properly, this time. Not that Jason would say that his mother's breakdown when he was ten wasn't proper, but he's seen worse ones. Ones that have left him scarred beyond all measure.

He sees Whizzer break down first, a couple of hours before he dies. Whizzer is sat on the chair next to his bed - he looks old. He's old and weak and frail and _imperfect_ \- Jason's never seen him without a toothy smile on his face or his hair styled immaculately. The man that Jason looks at is not Whizzer, certainly not the Whizzer he knew, and Jason doesn't know exactly what to do.

Jason can see tears staining his cheeks, a grimace of pain upon his once plump lips, and defeat etched into his skin. The grey gown he's huddled into makes him look smaller, almost pathetic. Jason thought he'd go out with a bang, not with a shudder, definitely not with him closing his eyes and ready to accept death. The Whizzer he knew would fight and grip death until death let go.

Jason takes his father's hand and Marvin takes a glance at his son, his own eyes bleary after talking with Charlotte. Jason smiles, or at least attempts to, and Marvin pulls him in a hug. When Jason walks into Whizzer's room, he sees Whizzer quickly wipe away tears, replacing them with a forced grimace akin to a smile.

_Whizzer broke down in sadness._

He sees his father break down next at Whizzer's funeral, no less. Marvin clings to Jason as though he's his lifeboat which Jason thinks is a little unfair as a _kid_ \- wait, he's a man now - can't be the only thing that someone can cling to. Marvin even hugs Trina, which is something in itself, but Jason can see him crumbling and breaking.

The week after Whizzer's funeral is when Marvin's break down reaches new heights. Jason still stays over that weekend, despite Trina's claims that Marvin isn't ready, prepared to do anything to make his father smile again. So he takes the 104 to the other side of the city, clutching his chest board tight, a photo of Whizzer in his pocket.

When he gets to the apartment, Marvin is strangely happy, strangely stumbling into door frames, strangely being sick into the toilet - Jason immediately recognises that he's drunk beyond anything that Jason's ever seen before. He doesn't quite know how to react when Marvin's stale breath hits him when his father tries to give him a hug, his arms fumbling and eyes blurry.

Jason somehow gets him to play chess but then Marvin's eyes turn dark, verging on despair so Jason attempts to show him something that used to make him happy. He shows his father the photo of Whizzer he has in his pocket, a tentative look on his face, willing his father to be happy. 

Marvin flies into a rage. He flips the chess board, grabs the photo of Whizzer from Jason's now shaking hands and rips it down the middle. His hand raises and then drops and Marvin stares at his son as though he's a stranger.

Jason goes to the lesbians, his cheek stinging even though Marvin didn't connect. He doesn't tell them why he's over there, he just asks if they've got another photo of Whizzer that he can have, preferably without his father in it this time.

_Marvin broke down in anger._

He sees his mother break down next at his father's funeral. She keeps crying _and crying and crying_ and Jason doesn't quite know how to react - he hasn't seen her this bad since the divorce. And she keeps saying over _and over and over_ that's it's her fault, that she should've kept a closer eye on Marvin but Jason knows that it isn't her fault, if anything it's Whizzer's which is quite harsh to say when Whizzer is dead.

Trina didn't lift the pill bottle to Marvin's hands. Trina didn't unscrew the cap. Trina didn't swallow _one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven_ pills.

At the wake Trina disappears somewhere and soon Mendel starts to worry so leaves his step son to talk with half forgotten relatives who hold him and say _sorry for your loss_. Jason doesn't react, just stays silent, forcing a stoic cover on his face whilst they fuss over him until the lesbians take him to the food table and watch him eat.

"Help me, _please_ ," Mendel's voice is desperate and blood stains his hands. Charlotte jumps into action immediately, rushing towards the bathroom yelling for _someone to call an ambulance god dammit._

It isn't until much later that Jason realises his mother has slit her wrists.

 _Trina broke down in guilt_.

He sees his step father break down next in their home. Trina hasn't been the same since Marvin's funeral. She wears long sleeved shirts and has permanent bags under her eyes that turn her skin sickly grey. She doesn't say anything, not even to Jason.

Mendel doesn't know what to do. He paces back and forth, going through techniques in his head _make the patient talk, make the patient express their feelings, if you have to half hypnotise the patient._ But none of these things work on Trina and Mendel is stuck in a despairing hole and can't escape.

"Trina please just talk. Say _anything_ please I, I don't know what to do anymore, you have to say something. I don't think you understand what this is doing to me. Jason misses you, _please_."

Jason's step father folds in on himself and begins to spend most of his days trapped inside with Trina begging with her to do anything. Mendel finds himself sobbing into her uncaring shoulder and unfamiliar arms.

 _Mendel broke down in despair_.

He sees Cordelia break down next when they're sorting through the dead apartment. It still smells of Marvin and Whizzer and Jason almost calls out to say that his father has left another shirt on the floor of their living room before he realises that there's no one there to pick it up.

He finds Cordelia sat next to Whizzer's bed side table, thumbing through pictures that he'd taken, gliding past images of a smiling Marvin and a blissfully happy Jason. Jason remembers when these pictures were taken; it was the weekend before everything went wrong - Whizzer had said he'd taken Jason to his next baseball game.

Cordelia pulls Jason in close, burying her face into his hair that show the remnants of Marvin. She shudders and Jason cautiously wraps an arm around her body.

 _Cordelia broke down in remembrance_.

He sees Charlotte break down next after coming home from work. Jason can't bare his home at the moment with Trina still unresponsive and Mendel seemingly spending all his spare time at work - it's more tense than when Trina caught his father and Whizzer in the den.

He's watching a day time show on the TV when she storms in heading straight for the bathroom. He hears her throwing up her guts and retching so violently that he fears she may ruin her throat.

She explains that the virus - _the dad killer_ \- is spreading faster than ever and infecting more and more bachelors that they're having to turn many of them away with promises that maybe they'll be less busy the next day. The Reagan's don't care and neither do the majority of the population as they ignore every gay man within a million mile radius.

They still don't have a cure and Charlotte is forced to watch more men die in front of her eyes and _everytime she's reminded of Whizzer._

_Charlotte broke down in fear._

Somehow, he doesn't see himself break down. Jason is a _man_. He's smarter and braver than his fathers and won't break down.

But he does. And every time a member of his family crawl deeper into the hole of despair he finds himself being dragged down too until his mind is so foggy he can hardly breathe. He can't breathe.

It's not until he finds his mind so numb, a pill bottle in one hand, and a razor in the other that he realises he's broken.

_Jason broke down in sadness, in anger, in guilt, in despair, in remembrance, in fear, and **numb**. _

 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Instagram: broadwayiscooliguess 
> 
> Exciting inferences that I made: 
> 
> \- Mendel is the only one to have speech marks because in Jason's mind Mendel is the only one who consistently breaks through the barrier that he's created around himself. This is easily seen in Please Come To Our House and the following sequence as Mendel seems to be the only person in Act 1 who actually listens to Jason. This relationship is built on in Act 2 - Jason tells Mendel reasons why he doesn't want the Bar Mitzvah and Mendel actually listens instead of ignoring his feelings like Marvin and Trina do 
> 
> \- Jason copies his parents - why else would he act out in anger at the slightest things and make cruel remarks e.g. Just because you failed as parents - which is why he holds a pill bottle and razor at the end. He's copying as a coping mechanism because it's the only thing he really knows how to do  
>  
> 
> (Did anyone notice the smallest Heathers reference in this???)


End file.
